Very true, provided they don't read any of Steven Toy's posts.
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Louballoo
had to rofl
Very true, provided they don't read any of Steven Toy's posts.
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Louballoo
I think an enthusiast can get more info from a forum like this than what can be gleaned from any mag.
The Rules of the Game:
Magazines are in primarily in business to sell magazines. To succeed they sell advertising and to sell advertising, they must grant favourable reviews to manufacturers.
I doubt that HiFi Plush or any other rag for that matter, operates outside these rules.
That will mean a lot of unemployed people in Bath - which is sad.
I've never cared for Felix Dennis's publications much. Amazing to think he was one of the Oz trio in 1971. Or maybe not.
I can also do without reading any more of Mr Steward's Naim reviews - with their 'anal retentiveness to detail' and all that cobblers.
I'd go for a low-budget revival of the original HFC - all the current models of a genre reviewed thoroughly by a couple of trustworthy writers. I guess HiFi Critic is pretty much the nearest to it (and the same people!)
Actually, I find the forums the worst possible place to make any buying decision. People are idiots, their conclusions are under-powered, under-researched and driven by even more agendas than the paid press.
We've gone from relying on expert opinion to relying on the noise of the loud-mouth. In the process, the experts stopped caring about being experts and just sold their souls to the highest bidder. The paid reviews should be the highest common factor, honest and professional assessment of hi-fi equipment. I used to think the blind group tests of Hi-Fi Choice were the embodiment of that goal, but that all changed, perhaps because there was no longer enough of a market to keep a single-theme hi-fi magazine viable.
We've got so used to knuckle-dragging forum dickheads posing as 'experts' that we no longer value or even recognise experience, expertise and considered opinion. Even though I disagree with almost every conclusion he comes up with, I still value the writing of Robert E Greene in TAS. I'd still rather pay for the measured, considered opinion of an expert with years of experience and a body of published work, but most people are so convinced by the sound of their own voices that they prefer the lowest common denominator.
The crazy thing is people are prepared to take the say-so from someone who may have no knowledge, no experience and no idea just because its free when making an extremely expensive purchase. Perhaps this says bad things about the paid reviews, but I also think it says more about how stupid we've all become.
I learned this from the camera site DPReview. It runs professional reviews and these often contradict the negative opinions of the forum members. If you read the pro reviews, you'll see many 'Highly Recommended' cameras that are called 'fundamentally flawed' by the forum posters. But when you view the reasons why the camera is 'fundamentally flawed' (and the poster's history of calling out every camera they have ever owned as 'fundamentally flawed') you discover that it's the sort of flaw you only spot if you photograph broadsheet newspapers and nothing more. Sony ended up discontinuing a camera not because it was bad, but because some measurebator on a forum decided it wasn't good at doing something it wasn't intended to do and shouted long and hard about it.
The forums aren't an egalitarian space where unbiased folk dish out good advice, it's like The Lord of the Flies, without a conch. Mob rule is not democracy. It's mob rule.
knuckle-dragging forum dickheads posing as 'experts'
All current hifi comics aren't worth reading aside from the very very occasional interesting article. Stereophile and the Absolute Sound are pale reminders of their former selves. Same old gang of tired reviewers, some still auditioning gear with audiophile crap such as Mary Black, Rebecca Pigeon etc.
Stuff on the web can often be far more informative and entertaining, once you separate the wheat from the chaff.
Actually, I find the forums the worst possible place to make any buying decision. People are idiots, their conclusions are under-powered, under-researched and driven by even more agendas than the paid press.
We've gone from relying on expert opinion to relying on the noise of the loud-mouth. In the process, the experts stopped caring about being experts and just sold their souls to the highest bidder. The paid reviews should be the highest common factor, honest and professional assessment of hi-fi equipment. I used to think the blind group tests of Hi-Fi Choice were the embodiment of that goal, but that all changed, perhaps because there was no longer enough of a market to keep a single-theme hi-fi magazine viable.
We've got so used to knuckle-dragging forum dickheads posing as 'experts' that we no longer value or even recognise experience, expertise and considered opinion. Even though I disagree with almost every conclusion he comes up with, I still value the writing of Robert E Greene in TAS. I'd still rather pay for the measured, considered opinion of an expert with years of experience and a body of published work, but most people are so convinced by the sound of their own voices that they prefer the lowest common denominator.
The crazy thing is people are prepared to take the say-so from someone who may have no knowledge, no experience and no idea just because its free when making an extremely expensive purchase. Perhaps this says bad things about the paid reviews, but I also think it says more about how stupid we've all become.
I learned this from the camera site DPReview. It runs professional reviews and these often contradict the negative opinions of the forum members. If you read the pro reviews, you'll see many 'Highly Recommended' cameras that are called 'fundamentally flawed' by the forum posters. But when you view the reasons why the camera is 'fundamentally flawed' (and the poster's history of calling out every camera they have ever owned as 'fundamentally flawed') you discover that it's the sort of flaw you only spot if you photograph broadsheet newspapers and nothing more. Sony ended up discontinuing a camera not because it was bad, but because some measurebator on a forum decided it wasn't good at doing something it wasn't intended to do and shouted long and hard about it.
The forums aren't an egalitarian space where unbiased folk dish out good advice, it's like The Lord of the Flies, without a conch. Mob rule is not democracy. It's mob rule.
Actually, I find the forums the worst possible place to make any buying decision. People are idiots, their conclusions are under-powered, under-researched and driven by even more agendas than the paid press.
We've gone from relying on expert opinion to relying on the noise of the loud-mouth. In the process, the experts stopped caring about being experts and just sold their souls to the highest bidder. The paid reviews should be the highest common factor, honest and professional assessment of hi-fi equipment. I used to think the blind group tests of Hi-Fi Choice were the embodiment of that goal, but that all changed, perhaps because there was no longer enough of a market to keep a single-theme hi-fi magazine viable.
We've got so used to knuckle-dragging forum dickheads posing as 'experts' that we no longer value or even recognise experience, expertise and considered opinion. Even though I disagree with almost every conclusion he comes up with, I still value the writing of Robert E Greene in TAS. I'd still rather pay for the measured, considered opinion of an expert with years of experience and a body of published work, but most people are so convinced by the sound of their own voices that they prefer the lowest common denominator.
The crazy thing is people are prepared to take the say-so from someone who may have no knowledge, no experience and no idea just because its free when making an extremely expensive purchase. Perhaps this says bad things about the paid reviews, but I also think it says more about how stupid we've all become.
I learned this from the camera site DPReview. It runs professional reviews and these often contradict the negative opinions of the forum members. If you read the pro reviews, you'll see many 'Highly Recommended' cameras that are called 'fundamentally flawed' by the forum posters. But when you view the reasons why the camera is 'fundamentally flawed' (and the poster's history of calling out every camera they have ever owned as 'fundamentally flawed') you discover that it's the sort of flaw you only spot if you photograph broadsheet newspapers and nothing more. Sony ended up discontinuing a camera not because it was bad, but because some measurebator on a forum decided it wasn't good at doing something it wasn't intended to do and shouted long and hard about it.
The forums aren't an egalitarian space where unbiased folk dish out good advice, it's like The Lord of the Flies, without a conch. Mob rule is not democracy. It's mob rule.
I'd go for a low-budget revival of the original HFC - all the current models of a genre reviewed thoroughly by a couple of trustworthy writers. I guess HiFi Critic is pretty much the nearest to it (and the same people!)